


the red that binds

by pumpkinpickles



Category: Cinderella Phenomenon (Visual Novel)
Genre: Affairs, Angst, Corruption, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 04:22:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16055474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pumpkinpickles/pseuds/pumpkinpickles
Summary: He could never stand to lie to her.Except when -.Well.The exceptions don’t matter anymore, do they?Not when it is Varg’s company she seeks night after night.(in which varg is intent on making many, many excuses, and lucette is intent on having none of them explained as they partake in what is, at its very core, a destructive love.)





	the red that binds

**Author's Note:**

> written in the context of Fritz's bad end route - except Varg and Hildyr aren't dead, and Lucette never gets rescued by Marchen.

This arrangement isn’t so bad, Varg figures.

There’s the princess lying bare beneath him, blood on her teeth.

Lucette licks her lips, and drags him down for another rough, copper filled kiss.

Her skin is hot and sweaty under his roaming hands, and her voice sickly sweet.

No, Varg doesn’t mind at all.

Not even the way she calls for someone else as she finishes.

 

* * *

 

Hildyr dies years too late.

And Lucette - poor, pretty Lucette who’s seen the heads of one too many people she loved roll merciless at her feet - simply takes the crown like second nature.

Adopts her mother’s cruelty like a second skin.

Only this time, it’s driven like a rusty knife through herself.

Grotesque, but true.

Amongst the wreckage of her former self, Lucette rules with an iron fist.

Amongst the death of those not her fault, Lucette too, lays herself to rest.

Varg would know.

Since Varg’s seen it firsthand, with how the lionhearted princess discards her apathetic mask for him.

Not a queen to him, not yet.

Not when she’s still wounded and rabbit hearted, panting and unraveling so, so easily in Varg’s hands.

People don’t call him a magician for no good reason.

But, well.

Maybe that was a stretch.

Magicians hide aces up their sleeves, credit their fame to their secrecy.

Varg has none of those, not in front of his princess.

Ace in the holes never pull through for him.

Not when his ultimate ace is his face.

Even that doesn’t work on Lucette, who traces it with her nails.

Hard enough to hurt, but not enough to draw blood.

Not like the vibrant scarlet trails she leaves upon his back.

With secrets - tricky things - they are akin to lies, with her.

And that would never do.

He could never stand to lie to her.

Except when -.

Well.

The exceptions don’t matter anymore, do they?

Not when it is Varg’s company she seeks night after night.

Or is it just his face?

It doesn’t matter either way, to the man.

Not anymore.

 

* * *

 

Streaks of red haphazardly carved into his back, his arms.

So it’s only polite that he returns the favour with bruising bites of his own.

Teeth marks and throaty gasps hold their relationship together.

Heresy to a typical romance.

Varg would have minded, once upon a time.

But there’s hungry kisses pressed against his collarbone, humming against his jugular.

 _He_ would have minded, once upon a time.

But it is not his mind that has retained.

Lucette breaks into a wet gasp, and her eyes fill with tears.

Varg licks at the newest mark.

She doesn’t tell him to stop.

He doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

Some days, Varg’s fingers still tingle, phantom magic and invisible loss trickling out of him.

The screams of Lucette ringing in his ears, shrill as Hildyr’s laugh.

It had made his impossible headache pound.

Mind cleanly cleaved in half, Varg had never felt - worse.

Loose ends and punishments, Hildyr had crowed.

Varg’s fingers curl into a loose fist.

There’s nothing to hold on to.

No one.

Some days, Varg cannot tell the difference between Lucette’s grief and his own.

 

* * *

 

Whatever Lucette desires, Varg delivers.

_(kisses upon her palm, a rebel’s head on the stake)_

Whatever Lucette wishes, Varg grants.

_(her name whispered so carefully, the gouged eyes of an adviser)_

Whatever Lucette asks, Varg answers.

_(can you stay, will you leave, do you love me?)_

He’s always been compliant, but this -.

This is excessive, new.

But that is what his princess craves.

The fresh twist of Varg’s face from too long nails, the inelegant way he kisses her between her thighs.

Anything, anything that doesn’t remind.

That isn’t refined or right or proper.

That isn’t gentle or good or kind or -.

Him.

Lucette bites back another bitter cry to let slip a pleasured sigh.

Varg counts it as a point in his favour.

 

* * *

 

The first time Lucette does not spurn Varg’s touch is six months after he -

Expired, for the lack of a better word. A kinder one.

 _‘The only way,’_ Hildyr had said then, so boredly, callously, ‘ _to get you to behave, hm?’_

Now, it is a different matter entirely that has her in tears.

But she is still mad with the same grief, with loss, with terrible, terrible hatred the Tenebrarum soaks like a sponge.

How like the Queen to ensure her crown would go to a worthy heir in the worst ways possible.

Varg is only surprised Lucette does not tell him to go when he knocks at her door at midnight.

“Cinderella is up past her curfew.” Varg had said, trying so, so hard not to crumble at the sight of her running tears, her shaking fingers.

Varg is only surprised when Lucette pulls him in, locks the door behind them and kisses him feverishly, mumbling an ancient word both knew had already lost its meaning.

Then she falls to her knees, wailing gracelessly, too hurt to bother with facades, with pride.

And Varg falls with her, cradling her to his chest, letting her cry all the tears he cannot bring himself to.

“I don’t want to marry - _marry -.”_

And she cannot finish her sentence, too betrayed to even think of her own mother’s words from the afternoon.

Cruel excuses of genetics and the country’s future, of Hildyr’s own sacrifice.

Funny thing to call your own daughter, really.

Her hot tears spurs - something in the raven.

Something Varg thought had died six months ago.

Bending over, Varg kisses the corner of Lucette’s eye, murmuring against her flushed skin, “You don’t have to give them anything.”

Smart, clever Lucette, understands without repetition his connotations.

“No.” She agrees, and still lost in her mad grief, kisses him again.

And again, and again, until they end up on her bed, until it is his name tumbling senselessly between her heated gasps, the aching of being filled that brings tears to her eyes instead.

Lucette doesn’t give Hildyr, the kingdom, any more of herself than she gives Varg.

Which is to say, everything, but nothing, all at once.

It’s a contradiction Varg does not understand until Hildyr’s blood is on Lucette’s hands, a familiar sword plunged through her bosom.

Poetic justice, Varg would have said, if not for the hollowed out stare Lucette bears as she drags the sword out.

Blood splatters over her dress, her unflinching face.

That day, Angielle celebrated the death of a queen and the crowning of a new one.

That day, Lucette gave herself away - but to whom, Varg isn’t sure.

Especially when Varg finds his princess seeking his companionship once more that night, another name hanging off her lips.

Varg doesn’t mind, not when he could have been that person.

Not when he was.

(but what a difference ‘was’ and ‘is’ made.)

 

* * *

 

“Don’t - go.” Lucette breathes, face buried into Varg’s neck.

She peppers a butterfly kiss, and the knowledge of who it is she’s calling for kills him.

“I won’t.” Varg says, false and gentle, in a way these lips used to speak.

Shifting, he soaks in her moan.

Soaks in her pain.

Ah, they both really were -

Too far gone, weren’t they?

 

* * *

 

Once, back when Lucette was still more of a girl than a witch, Varg had heard her singing to herself.

It was a lipsing, low tune, too complicated to be any childhood lullaby.

A forgotten language rolling over her tongue, clicking between her teeth.

Hiding himself behind the corner, with but a wall separating them, Varg had closed his eyes to the sky and listened.

It was a tune he recognised, a love song rough around its edges and poorly composed.

Still, Lucette had made it sound so -

Beautiful.

And when she tapered off, Varg had thought he could hear her smile.

Had thought she just might, a slender curve of lip unabashedly reserved for him.

But which _him_ Varg refers to -

Till now Varg doesn’t know.

Doesn’t want to know.

Ah, he really _was_ a coward, after all.

 

* * *

 

The moon is high when Lucette sinks into Varg’s arms, in tears, once more.

This time, it’s a quiet trickle, too used to their path down her pale cheeks.

Again, he silently holds her, combing, tangling his fingers in her too long hair.

For once, they sit on the bed fully dressed.

The letter from Brugantia lies crumpled on the bedside table.

In it, King Klaude Aidric Renaldi Mattheus Almonte details their search for the missing Prince Rod Benedikt Widdensov and Princess Emelaigne Widdensov -

The rest is better left unsaid. Kinder.

“Varg.”

Lucette speaks for the first time since the man has entered her chambers, voice scratchy and hollow.

Varg hums in reply, gazing down at her. Touched by the barest fractures of moonlight, she looks vulnerable, common.

Certainly nothing like the queen the people of Angielle all loved her as.

Certainly nothing like the awkwardly kind princess _he_ had loved her as.

Lucette’s grip over his shirt is unnaturally tight, and Varg lets it be.

She pushes herself off his chest, and moves from her position curled on his lap to straddle his hips instead.

Varg’s hands find themselves on her waist and back, teasing fingers running down the indents of her spine.

Unaffected, or at least appearing not, Lucette leans forward.

Hair sliding over her shoulders, hands sliding over Varg’s chest to rest with thumbs overlapping on his neck, a loving, loose chokehold.

“You will die by my hand and no one else’s.” Lucette breathes. “Understood?”

Slowly, surely, her hands fully circle around Varg’s throat. She does not squeeze down. Varg almost wishes she would.

Honey eyes half lidded, caramelised a bitter brown in the darkness of the room.

They hold no trace of softness, of love, of anything good or pure, anything he might have once loved her for.

Anything he might still love her for.

“Whatever you want, _Lucette_.” Varg whispers, all blind devotion and reverence, all canines and mockery, all the things she likes about him.

And when Lucette smiles in response, Varg can almost pretend it’s kind.

Almost.

 

* * *

 

Lucette’s touch was careful and worried, once.

Like a calm stream, smooth and cool, always questioning, always wanting to swallow up more than she allowed her fingertips to graze.

Now, kissing her wrist, Varg cannot find that hesitation.

Her touch is an icy burn, blistering and devouring, eager and painful grips that claw his shoulders, his chest, anywhere it can reach.

It’s just a pity none of that want is reflected in her watering eyes, clear and desperate for something - someone.

It’s just a pity neither of them can give the other what they wholeheartedly seek from each other night after night.

The whole affair is a piteous one, really.

When it consists of licking at each other's wounds and pretending that gaping loss can be filled with empty lust; what else can it possibly be?

What else can it possibly become?

But Varg doesn’t -

Care.

Can’t bring himself to.

Not when the one who did, so, so much, is already gone.

And in his maddening grief, Varg kisses Lucette.

 

* * *

 

It isn’t healthy.

It isn’t right.

It isn’t anything Lucette deserves.

But still.

She’s the one who keeps returning, who keeps desiring, wishing, asking.

And Varg -

Varg is only happy to provide.

What else is a loyal wolf good for, if not to please his mistress?

If it starts with corruption, and ends with the guillotine -

Well.

Varg was never one to expect a long life, anyway.

He doesn’t know when judgement will fall, if it ever will.

All he knows is when its time to pay his dues, there’ll be a forgotten song trailing from his lips, and the woman who once, could have loved him, will be the one who swings the gavel.

And if that’s how he goes -

Varg doesn’t mind it at all.

**Author's Note:**

> this was a vent fic !! felt good to write loosely and wout much planning again. hmu @madokasoratsugu on tumblr winks.
> 
> also: have fun figuring out who each pronouns belong to lmao :"))


End file.
